Put in the time ( So few people do this )

[dean_holland]

Hey Warriors

I just want to put something out there and I know many product owners will benefit from this. This particularly applies to those with evergreen products...

I'm talking about training your affiliates to sell for you. Sure many people will mention in their ebook that the reader can promote it for cash but that's where it stops.

What if you were to actually invest your time in training affiliates to be effective affiliate partners of yours ?! I'm not just saying hand them a bunch of resources and swipe files either, I mean REALLY train them.

What if you have a system to train affiliates for example to - setup a blog, drive traffic, build a list, use social media ... etc ?

The kind of training many sell every single day online, you give for FREE !

But what happens ?

You have an army of affiliates that can promote for you on an on-going basis, you have loyal followers that trust and respect you because of the help you have given them and ultimately your business grows immensely.

Just some thought there for people, would love to hear your thoughts

Thanks

Dean

[Arizona]

Good piece of advice, Dean. We have not yet begun having others promote our product, because it is usually the other way around! However, when we get to that stage, this is very good information to remember to make the most of our affiliate program. Summed up, it means more sales!

[nick1123]

Good idea Dean! But most affiliates never make a sale and don't have the resources to make mega sales. How do you find the affiliates that have big potential and focus on them?

Or did you have a way to train everyone?

[willyboy104]

Dean, very interesting and very similar to the thoughts of myself it seems very few people are doing this at the moment and instead are only seeing the short term advantages of selling these types of courses instead of giving them away for free and instead building long term relationships with these people.

Marketing has changed, and companies throughout the world both online and offline are looking more long term and so should you.

This is the way forward, or at least for me it is.

[MJGrae]

Never thought about that before. Seems like it'd be ridiculously effective. I mean, obviously the product creator would be the one of the best sellers of their own product, so why not make an army of great, knowledgeable affiliates?

[HarrisonJ]

Better just to approach website owners with traffic and try to get them to promote your affiliate program I think. Or, setup a paid program where you teach people how to do these things. Training people on how to get traffic and make sales would be really hard to do for free, and I think would pay a lot less than charging for it.

[JMB Marketing Group]

Originally Posted by nick1123

Good idea Dean! But most affiliates never make a sale and don't have the resources to make mega sales. How do you find the affiliates that have big potential and focus on them?

Or did you have a way to train everyone?

Actually, Willie Crawford had (maybe still does) a training course on how to make it as an affiliate working form him. It was quite an intensive course and extremely interesting.

Of course, you had to sign up and pay something for it though (it could have been just one of his products though and he would teach you how to)! He's a marketing genius! He's got awesome information. Someone I wouldn't hesitate to learn from and cling to.

Cheers,

JMB

[Bruce_Richards]

A nice piece of advice

[Willie Crawford]

Originally Posted by JMB Marketing Group

Actually, Willie Crawford had (maybe still does) a training course on how to make it as an affiliate. It was quite an intensive course.

Of course, you had to sign up and pay for it though! He's a marketing genius!

Cheers,

JMB

I actually have a 52 lesson email affiliate training course
that is free for anyone to enroll in. I do train my affiliates,
but also open it up to others... knowing that many of the
enrollees will eventually become my affiliates after taking
the course.

PM me if you'd like enrollment details.

I keep telling my wife and daughters that I'm a marketing
genius, but they don't buy it

Willie

[Willie Crawford]

Originally Posted by nick1123

Good idea Dean! But most affiliates never make a sale and don't have the resources to make mega sales. How do you find the affiliates that have big potential and focus on them?

Or did you have a way to train everyone?

You build your affiliate program and notice which ones of
your affiliates are actually making sales, ranking in the
search engines and promoting your products in their ezines
or on their websites. Then you focus you efforts on them.

You can also watch product launch affiliate sales contest.
Notice which affiliate make the most sales because the ARE
proactive, and you focus your efforts on recruiting these
affiliates.

Willie

[freudianslip27]

Excellent point,

Of course many of your affiliates will half go through the training and never sell anything, but for those that do, this is more than worth it.

It's a win-win situation, and it is surprising so few people do it. I still gasp whenever I view a clickbank affiliate page that has terrible suggestions on it, its like they don't want their affiliates being successful!

Matt

[JMB Marketing Group]

Originally Posted by Willie Crawford

I actually have a 52 lesson email affiliate training course
that is free for anyone to enroll in. I do train my affiliates,
but also open it up to others... knowing that many of the
enrollees will eventually become my affiliates after taking
the course.

PM me if you'd like enrollment details.

I keep telling my wife and daughters that I'm a marketing
genius, but they don't buy it

Willie

Willie, darling.

I was still editing my response when you chimed in (and before I saw your response here)!

You should go back and read it. It puts YOU on a pedestal!

WHY? Because it's true!

However, THANK YOU for the training clarification. FREE that's good! Being trained by a marketing genius, THAT'S GREAT!

Thanks Willie! You have no idea how much YOU give to others freely here. You have no idea how much I've learned from YOU!

Like I said, YOU are a marketing genius. Can't figure out why your family can't see that. Guess you haven't given them access to your PayPal account

Hugs,

JMB

[Kevin Riley]

Originally Posted by Willie Crawford

I keep telling my wife and daughters that I'm a marketing
genius, but they don't buy it

Ah. That was the look of "less than impressed" on your wife's face at Raleigh. LOL.

[dean_holland]

Thats cool Willie that you do that !!

It's an approach im taking in my business and as mentioned it will be a win - win for all involved

Thanks

[GarryMSayer]

Hey Dean,

I think the concept of recruiting your own army of affilates through affiliate marketing ebook sales and/or giveaways / free opt-ins, and then training them up to be superstars with the quality content you provide is a fantastic long-term business model to employ.

I really should do more of it myself!

Mr Willie Crawford 's already admitted to using it in this thread, and I'm pretty darn sure it's been used by a certain Mr Ewen Chia with SOME () degree of success.

It's not a quick-cash generating business model, but if you get it right, like these two guys have, I'm sure that long-term you'll be reaping the benefits.

Best of luck mate.

Garry

[Alex Williams]

Agree with it 100%. Sadly, this really requires lots of time, and that`s why people don`t bother.

Anyways, for the long term success, this is essential.

Thanks,
Alex

[EndGame]

I have actually done a little bit of this before for digital and information products.

It is a good investment of time if you have the resources, time and money to do it. I was employed specifically to hand-hold, help and motivet affiliates. I contacted all of them regularly offering one-on-one phone time, help training, resources, anything they needed.

Only one or two responded. We had one super-affiliate who was very responsive. I spent a lot of time on the phone with him, and he was responsbile for about 70-80% of our sales through affiliates. Unfortunately, I didn't get many "from-scratch" affiliates performing that well.


But I do think in this market it is a worthwhile exercise and this is already being done, most notably by a one Mr. Travis Sago, who offers bloody excellent information, pdf reports, courses, training and keyword data totally for free to his inflated list of bum marketers. His product, "The Magic of Making Up" is one of the top CB products (top 5 or 10 I think) and has been for some time. No big launch, just well trained affiliates working hard for him.

People have already mentioned it in this thread, but by the laws of averages and applying a little bit of Pareto's law, it is likely that only 20% of your affiliates/trainees are going to generate any significant income for you. The top 2% will make a large chunk of that.

As Willie has said, identify those that are performing, even if it is only small numbers (if they are making you money, at least they got off their asses) and really pay special attention to those guys and treat them like Gold. You'll never regret it.